


Sorrow

by AstraKiseki



Category: Exalted
Genre: Abyssals, Comfort, F/F, F/M, Flashbacks, Lunars, Multi, Oral Sex, Past Lives, Solars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-14
Updated: 2012-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-31 03:40:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/339492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstraKiseki/pseuds/AstraKiseki





	Sorrow

Midnight was the threshold hour, as Icarus had once said. Somewhere in that asymmetric hour, between the gears of the world and the Loom of Creation was a sort of uncertainty that made one's heart race faster harder than any other time, even if you were surrounded by golden lights, with friends. The Empty Smile of the Grinning Skull was not quite in such a place, alone in a place forlorn enough to feel like a tomb, her limbs sprawled across the heavy silks and blankets separating her from rough, unfeeling stone. It was frigid as well, her fingers distantly feeling the edge of a winter frost, every nerve numbed against the chill air.  
  
As distant as the cold was, the Midnight could hear something farther away, the chiming of bells that heralded that threshold hour. The sound across her skin made every inch of her body react, a faint color to her skin, her tongue flick out across her lips as her heart began to dance faster, straining for a familiar sound, a familiar touch. Always the same quiet technique, the faint, faint pad of bare feet across stone, fingers across her toes, and another presence seemingly to appear out of nothing before her. There was nothing to say, no furtive glances to be had as the Empty Smile shuddered at the soft sigh of appreciation across her thigh and then the clever kiss across her clit sending far hotter shivers up her arching spine.  
  
She could hear her own breath echo in there, hoarse and loud enough to hide the soaked sounds of her lover's attention, the pad of a thumb pressed against the little nub of need, coaxing more and more exquisite sounds from her mouth. He was gentle, of course, kind, but the strength in his fingers, the possessive pressure of his fingers just beyond her inner folds made her gasp beyond pleasure, a pulse of cold fire in between the heated laps across her core, pushing her higher and hotter, against memories she would much rather not remember.  
  
Empty Smile frantically shook her head, shoving the thoughts away. It wasn't fair, it wasn't right, not after so long. The deathknight's pale hands scrambled for something to grip away from herself, to act as a point of reality among the delicious sensations around her, lips and _warmth_ against all of the dreadful, sterile cold. It was wonderfully terrifying, the spectre of the Neverborn banished away by the fire burning at the crux of her legs, stroking something that had barely been touched for months into something that could rival the noonday sun.  
  
A finger intruding deep into her made her voice catch, a tremor hard enough to force her to reflexively bite down on her lip, a coppery taste that made it all too much. The penetration, the taste, the presence were far too familiar, catapulting her back _there_ , surrounded by ruby-red walls, by northern frost-  
  
"St-stop!"  
  
Her cry broke the unspoken spell. The veneer of memory was shattered in a moment of warm, honeyed light shed by a golden half-circle above a pair of bright blue eyes blinking up from in under the Abyssal's skirts, her own juices shining on plump, pink lips, a woman's face there instead of _his_. The woman there dabbed her lips with a white cloth as her brow furrowed with concern. "Grin?" The word came out in the warm, friendly voice of a friend, not the arrogance her memory insisted on as the woman withdrew, her expression not even hinting at any frustration at being interrupted _again._  
  
"I-it's just..." Empty Smile glanced away, crossing her arms over her chest, shivering at distant memories, at a master that was still so close, as near as the tremors still shuddering within her, twitching at the feeling of the hardened peaks of her breasts. "I'm sorry, Lemeza." The Abyssal thanked every god she could think of for allowing her at least the presence of self to remember which person was there.  
  
"Him again, I presume?" Empty Smile felt the Twilight move more than she heard it, a bare hand brushing across her cheek and turning her chin towards Lemeza's gentle kiss on her nose, filling her senses with her own need as she nodded. "You already said he didn't ever touch you as one, it really shouldn't matter that I'm his successor, should it?" Lemeza's fingers traced down the curve of her jaw, down her neck, a whisper away from her breasts.  
  
"You... still sort of act like him, though and it's a bit..." The Twilight let out a sigh, her nose scrunching up in annoyance as Smile's voice trailed off. It was true, there were differences, but when it all came down to it, the Deathlord and the living Twilight were disturbingly similar. "It's not just the bare feet or the words you use, or the rapier or how you share a similar sty-" Her words were cut off not by a caress, but an embrace, contact as the Solar hugged her wordlessly, her hands woven into Empty Smile's long black hair.  
  
It was warm and safe, her body not nearly as frigid as his had been, or the room around them, as her fingers gently pulled and tucked fabric back to where it had been, cooing gently as the Midnight curled up against the Twilight, shivering harder than she ever had against Icarus's uncaring body. He had only seen her as Bright Smile, the Zenith she had been in the First Age, an emotion so ingrained into his very Essence that his female successor felt it, and yet she had never resented it. Lemeza accepted it all, even with as much as Empty Smile had to deny it for fear of the Neverborn, as many times as she rejected the woman for fear of the memories she brought to bear, the jealousy of her old master. The Midnight hated herself more and more for it with each passing moment as the Twilight drifted off into gentle slumber.  
  
"No luck again?" A different masculine tone inquired, her proper Mate's question soft and gentle as he sat down behind the songstress. Silver-lined Gale had been wooing Lemeza well before finding Smile, and had done his best to help act as a mediator when he could in between Solar and Abyssal, almost as much as the Solar acted in the same role for Abyssal and Lunar, and as Smile nodded, squeezing Lemeza closer, he sighed at the silent signal to not take the Twilight away, patting his Mate's shoulder. "It's only been, what, a year? Lem's been saying we have centuries to work this out."  
  
The patience in his voice was too much, Smile looking up at her Lunar with tears burning behind her eyes as she reached upward to caress his cheek. "I don't deserve either of you..." Gale took her trembling hand and kissed the knuckles before his breath rushed across the wet mark of his mouth with another sigh. Without a word, he simply laid down as well, running his fingers down her side, fingertips intertwining with Lemeza's own.  
  
After some time, it finally became quiet in between slumbering sun and dreaming moon, leaving the Empty Smile of the Grinning Skull, once of the Lover Clad in a Raiment of Tears, alone in the world of the waking and afraid of the darkness that would come when _she_ slept, for sinning against the dead, for remembering life. Then, subtly, she felt the two hands at her hips squeeze softly, as if to encourage her to not be afraid, to remind her they were there.  
  
The Midnight's hand joined the two at her side, and closed her eyes, not bothering to even think of the tears trickling down her face as she let herself face what dreams could come.


End file.
